Now MEW can mean two different realty problems. Not only does it stand for Mortgage Equity Withdrawal, it also is an acronym for Middlefield-Ellis-Whisman, the area the EPA is monitoring for vapor intrusion. You see, there is too such a thing as being on the Wrong Side of Middlefield.

TCE (Tricoroethylene), a cleaning solvent that’s been sitting in the ground since the early days of the semiconductor industry, is the apparent culprit. Oh yeah, and the military dumped it as well. Vapor intrusion is when these chemicals lead to outgassing into buildings over the TCE plume in the ground. Researchers note it’s difficult to clean up because the area near Moffett Field is made up of… well, mud.

Do you live near any of these problem areas, or know someone who does? How much would you overbid for the opportunity to meet cute EPA scientists or cancer researchers?

Or if this topic is way too depressing for you, talk about anything you’d like in this Open Thread. When you’re not worried about getting cancer from TCE, there’s always the Fantasy Slut League, coming to a high school near you!

Whisman station is nice, I’ve walked through there before on the way to work, the townhouses look nice, it has its own light rail station, and last time I looked it had townhouses in the 600s, a price even I could afford. They call it GTE on the map, I call it Whisman Station.

“It can get big as it was again maybe in 50 years. This housing bubble was a once-in-a-lifetime thing, I imagine,” Shiller said. “Although, you know, the market might be more volatile, so the future is always unknown.”

To make his case, Shiller noted how the investing culture has changed over the years, thereby greatly affecting the housing market.

“50 years ago, hardly anyone thought of houses as investments, but now, people are focused on it like never before,” Shiller said, adding that homebuilding was so rampant in markets like Phoenix and Miami, it quickly drove up home prices to where one could see the bubble forming very early on. “The funny thing about this recent experience is it became so nationwide. Housing markets aren’t supposed to be correlated all over the country like that. It was a rare phenomenon.”

Disclaimer

The posts on this weblog are provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confer no rights. The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and only represent the view of Burbed.com's editor. Comments are the views of commenters, not Burbed. If companies, properties, etc are mentioned on this blog, you should assume that I have a financial stake in them. Trust no one.